For example, the agricultural yield of pollinator-dependent crops is improved by the diversity and abundance of wild pollinators ( Klein, Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke, 2003 Garibaldi et al., 2013 Blaauw & Isaacs, 2014 Dainese et al., 2019), while the diversity and abundance of these same pollinators are negatively affected by agricultural practices related to intensification ( Kennedy et al., 2013 Grab et al., 2018). We show that floral resource quality is sensitive to agrochemical exposure and that flower-visiting insects are sensitive to variation in floral resource quality.Īlthough the production of many agricultural crops depends on and/or benefits from insect pollination, many pollinating insects are negatively affected by agricultural land management. An interaction between pollen protein and floral display suggested pollen amino acid concentrations drove insect preference among plant species when floral display sizes were large. The insect visitation rate correlated with nectar amino acids, pollen amino acids, and pollen fatty acids. The responses of plants exposed to the experimental treatments in the greenhouse helped explain insect visitation in the field study.
Exposure to low fertilizer concentrations also increased the quantity of pollen and nectar produced per flower. We found pollen amino acid concentrations were lower in plants exposed to low concentrations of herbicide, and pollen fatty acid concentrations were lower in plants exposed to low concentrations of fertilizer, while nectar amino acids were higher in plants exposed to low concentrations of either fertilizer or herbicide. We collected data on floral visitation by insects in the field experiment for two field seasons and collected pollen and nectar from focal plants in the greenhouse to avoid interfering with insect visitation in the field.
We applied the same agrochemcial treatments (low concentrations of fertilizer, low concentrations of herbicide, a combination of both, and a control of just water) to seven plant species in the field and greenhouse. We conducted complementary field and greenhouse experiments to evaluate the: (1) effect of low concentrations of agrochemical exposure on nectar and pollen quality and (2) relationship between floral resource quality and insect visitation. For example, flower-visiting insects in agroecosystems rely on weeds on field edges for foraging resources, but these weeds are often exposed to agrochemicals that may compromise the quality of their floral resources. The availability and quality of floral resources may be affected by anthropogenic land use. Pollinating insects provide economically and ecologically valuable services, but are threatened by a variety of anthropogenic changes. Fertilizer and herbicide alter nectar and pollen quality with consequences for pollinator floral choices. Cite this article Russo L, Ruedenauer F, Gronert A, Van de Vreken I, Vanderplanck M, Michez D, Klein A, Leonhardt S, Stout JC. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. Licence This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. 7 University of Mons, Mons, Belgium DOI 10.7717/peerj.15452 Published Accepted Received Academic Editor Daniel Silva Subject Areas Ecology, Entomology Keywords Pollilnator health, Floral resources, Pollinator nutrition, Agrochemicals, Plant-pollinator interactions, Pollen amino acids, Pollen fatty acids, Nectar sugars, Nectar amino acids Copyright © 2023 Russo et al.
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